


Magic and Everything In Between

by orphan_account



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Rekka no Ken | Fire Emblem: Blazing Sword
Genre: Camping, F/M, One Shot, Tsunderes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-13
Updated: 2018-01-13
Packaged: 2019-03-04 06:10:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,403
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13358160
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: In which Serra and Erk teach each other their magic.(rated teens and up for minor swear words)





	Magic and Everything In Between

The group had just set out after finding Archasage Athos. Heeding his words, they travel from the Nabata desert to the lands of the powerful military kingdom of Bern, hoping to stop the King Desmond from using his great power to no good.

Night proves to have come quicker than any of them had expected, by dusk they still haven't reached their target stop of a small town just outside of Bern. 

Eliwood stops his horse, and the rest follow suit. "Alright guys, I guess we have to camp here for the night." he says as he gets off. "Merlinus, take out the tents and mats."

"Ye- Yes, my lord!" Merlinus says hastily as he waddled off to his merchandise cart.

Serra surveys the surroundings. Sure enough, the sky is almost pitch black, with no stars out. They seem to be in a meadow, with a forest not too far ahead. To the right side, a mountain range extends vertically.

"Listen up y'all!" Hector bellows. Serra quickly snaps out of her reverie and focuses on the lords. Eliwood elbows him.

"Right, I'm sorry that you had to deal with this oaf's voice," Eliwood jokes, much to Hector's annoyance. "I'm just kidding. Anyway, so we'll be assigning three camps tonight, one under the three of us; me, Hector and Lyn."

"So let's start with my camp. Lowen, Rebecca, Lucius, Canas and Tactician." Eliwood says. "Ninian and Nils too."

Hector gags. "Haha I see how this goes Eliwood, Ninian-"

Everyone turns to look at Ninian.  
Even under the dull glow of a few lamps one cannot miss the flushed look on Ninian's face.

Eliwood gulps nervously. "Shut up, Hector. Then for Lyn's camp," he continues as she gives him a not-so-subtle apprehensive look. 

"Sain, Kent, Florina, Erk and Serra."

Lyn looked visibly relieved with the lineup, however Erk didn't. Serra would liken his reaction to one of a bloated surprise face, the kind they always do in comedy plays.

"Everyone else goes to Hector. Any questions?"

"Ninia-"

"Hector, no. Okay, I suppose that's it. Groupings will be sorted out by your camp leader. Have a good night's sleep everyone."

Everyone starts to head towards their respective leader. Serra spots the ever so familiar purple hair, and immediately proceeds to clap its owner on the shoulder.

"Hey Erk, guess we're in the same group eh?" she says. "Good thing, you can keep watching over me. If I'm feeling generous, I'll watch over you too!"

Erk coughs. "How many times do we have to discuss this? I brought you to Ostia because I was paid to do so."

"Aw Erk," Serra couldn't help but giggle as she pinched his cheek. "You should feel privileged watching over me."

"You two come here," Lyn calls out. They both trudge over to her.

"Okay so, Eliwood's assigned us three tents. So yes, there's going to be two people in one tent." Lyn looks to Florina. "Florina here has a fear of men so obviously she's staying with me."

"So- Sorry. . ." Florina stutters. Lyn smiles and places her hand on her head. 

"Don't worry about it. And, uh. . ." Lyn looks up. Serra looks to where she's looking, and sees that Kent and Sain were already setting up a tent of their own. Sain manages to catch her eye and wink before punching a rather disgruntled Kent in the ribs. 

It took a while for Serra to register who her partner was, but it did not lessen her excitement in any way. 

"Erk! Now you can truly keep watch over me, even if it's just for the night," she says as she grins at him. He takes a deep breath, eyes closed.

". . .Great." Erk says, going over to grab a tent. Lyn chuckles.

"Don't give him a hard time, Serra." she says as hands her a sleeping bag. 

"Sorry Lyn, can't guarantee that." she says and sticks out her tongue. 

Lyn rolls her eyes. "Okay fine, but if I see you up to no good I will not hesitate to bring out the consequences."

Serra nods and turns back to find that the tent had already been set up. "That was fast," she thought to herself as she entered the tent.

Erk was already inside, on his mat reading a book under a lamp floating above him. He had removed his cloak so he was left in a plain white long sleeved shirt and dark pants. 

"Hello." he mutters. 

Serra was quite amazed. He did all this in what, a minute?

"You're fast." she says as she places the mat on the ground and plops down on it. 

He smirks a little. "Being an advanced magic user is great."

Serra feels herself heat up from embarrassment. "Oh shut up." she replied, removing her boots and gloves before laying down.

She stares at Erk's floating lamp. She'd always been conscious about her skills in magic. She knew wielding healing staves was her area of expertise, and she undoubtedly knew she was quite good at it. 

However when it came to other forms of magic, Serra couldn't cope for some odd reason; they always ended with no effect at all. One such particularly incident that showed such is when she had to work with a restore staff. Most of the group including Priscilla were poisoned, and it was a particularly unprepared battle where none of them had vulneraries available. Serra couldn't get the restore staff to work so she ended up using lots of mend staves to heal them every time they are hurt from poison.

This has subjected her to some teasing from Erk at some point, and from the looks of it, he's never going to let it go.

She closes her eyes. Maybe she was doing it wrong? No way could someone like her be that incapable of magic.

They stay in silence for a few more minutes until Serra decides to break it.

"Erk, just how much magic do you know?" she asks as she looks over to him, still laying down on her back. 

He looked surprised. Serra doesn't blame him, she knows this isn't something she would typically ask him. 

Erk purses his lips. "As you probably already know, anima magic is my specialty, but I can do basic spells, gimmicks and tricks in some other magic branches."

Serra nods and grins. "Are you adept at healing?"

"I- not- not particularly. Anyway, cut the chase Serra, what the hell are you asking this for?" 

Smirking, Serra sits up. "Alright, so here's the deal. You teach me your anima magic thing, I'll teach you healing."

Erk looks at Serra, closes his book and scoffs. "Clerics are trained for healing, mages are trained for tome usage. Plus, we're not particularly trained to be teachers in what we do--"

"Pah! Erk, you really don't think I'm not aware of that? Of course I am! But you are a great mage, and I, likewise, am a great cleric. You surely don't think we are not capable? It's not uncommon for a cleric to be capable of a mage's work and vice versa."

"Serra, I'm quite sure you're only creating delusions."

"Nonsense!" Serra exclaims, moving over to face Erk directly in the face. "Think about it. You mage guys get injured easily, yet mages still get sent to the front line because of the sheer power of magic. It would help a lot if you knew how to stitch yourself up even a little."

Erk frowns. It's true, defenses weren't the strong point of magic-based troops.

"Same thing with us clerics." Serra continues. "Point is, we haven't even tried yet, how do you know it's going to fail? And if we do fail, how do you know that it's the end of the line of we don't try and try again?"

"I should never have replied to you when you asked how I got to set up so quickly."

"Right. You should never mess with me. But there's no turning back," Serra states as she grabs her mend staff and opens the tent's entrance flap. "Let's start with teaching you healing. Outside we go."

Heaving a sigh, Erk prays this will be over quickly. Just for once, he decides to humor her and her bizarre wishes.

Outside, the sky is still dark. Unlike earlier, some stars have emerged from hiding, lighting up the sky even if just a little. Most of the tents around them are still lit, he can see the outlines, one of which seems to be Lucius's figure reading. 

"Erk!" Serra beckons to him from a distance. She had gone quite far from the settlement, but not far enough to lose sight of the tents. He doesn't understand why, they were only doing basic healing after all. He decides not to question her on that.

"Took you long enough." Serra says once Erk reaches her. He stumbles as the staff is shoved into his hands. He's never really had the time to look at it since it was only ever used during battles, but looking at it now, it did look pretty. A braided silver design with a bright blue orb wedged in top reflected the moon's light brilliantly. Even so, he felt a little silly holding it.

Serra seemed to read his mind. "I know you're thinking something like, _ooh, this is so girly, no way would I be seen in this_ , well guess what, deal with it. This can save your life."

"Let's start with the basics." Serra says as she pulls out a pocket knife. Since when did she get that?

Erk steps back. ". . .Serra?"

She looks at him with an unimpressed look on her face. "Jesus Erk, I'm not going to murder you. How are you supposed to heal without wounds?"

Of course, Erk. What's there to heal without wounds?

Erk holds out his left arm and takes a deep breath.

"It's okay, you've been nearly impaled by swords, lances, axes, this isn't anything. . ." he tells himself.

However it doesn't stop him from wincing when the cut is made.

Serra inspects his arm before giving a nod of approval. "That'll do."

"So, it goes like this. Hold the staff up," she instructs. Erk does as he's told.

"and imagine. . . a sort of energy being transported from the orb to the wound."

Erk closes his eyes and tries to visualize a concentration of blue light projecting from the orb to his fresh wound. He opens his eyes - nothing.

Serra tuts. "Seriously, Erk? Feel the energy, the will to heal. And just to add, I wouldn't recommend closing your eyes if I were you."

Grumbling, he once again raised the staff and focused on the imaginary projection. He swears he sees the orb glow a bright blue, much to his chagrin, it's gone by the next second.

"Dammit Serra, this isn't going anywhere-"

"No! You were so close! One more time!" 

Erk sighs. He's not sure if he really is close or if Serra just wants to mislead and torture him. He'd normally think it's the latter, but some part of him thinks maybe Serra is right.

He tries it once more. Imagining the energy and visualizing the process. After what seemed like a while a faint light emerges from the orb and transfers to his wound. He feels the familiar sensation of wounds being closed up and immediately checks the result. It's still there, but it seems to be in the state of a half formed scab. At least it's stopped bleeding.

"Done?" Serra asks, turning away from the mountains she had been observing. Erk nods. 

"I see. It better be good." she says, going over to him and taking his arm gingerly. "I stand corrected. Who am I kidding though, everyone starts somewhere. So hooray, you did it."

Erk hates to admit it, but he feels proud of himself. 

"Just keep practicing I guess. Anyway, " Serra continues, "this means that I finally successfully taught someone the ways of a cleric. This would do great for my job record, not like it was bad to begin with." she says with bright eyes, giving Erk a big thumbs up.

"I should have known there were ulterior motives behind this."

Serra chuckles, grabbing his unharmed arm and dragging him back inside the tent. She then proceeds to toss her staff to her bag (much to Erk's disapproval) and rummage around Erk's belongings, which he also did not particularly like. 

"Serra, the tomes are sensitive-"

"Oh cut the nonsense, will ya? These books are infused with durability magic, are they not?"

Once again, Erk feels embarrassed. Indeed they were, but he could not particularly stand the possibility of someone ruining the pristine condition of his tomes. He wonders how Serra knows so much about magic.

Serra huffs before presenting him an Elfire tome. "I want to learn this one."

He sighs for what seemed to be the hundredth time that night. "Serra, Elfire is an extremely advanced spell, I don't-"

She interrupts him before he can continue. "Yeah, thought so. Fine then, what's suitable for a-" she coughs, " _beginner_ like me then?"

Moments passed before Erk can truly fathom what Serra just said. For once, she's asking to be guided, and not the one who guides (or rather, pushes). 

Maybe, just maybe, this wouldn't be so bad after all?

"Thunder's a good spell for starters." Erk says, gesturing for his bag. Serra doesn't give it to him, instead she looks for the Thunder tome herself, which she actually manages to identify correctly. "How do you know so much about magic?"

"Being an advanced magic know-it-all is great." she mocked before tossing him the Thunder and once again heading out of the tent. Thankfully, Erk manages to catch it.

He heads outside. As expected, Serra is outside waiting for him. She's already flicking through the tome's pages.

"It's just a bunch of gibberish?" Serra questions, holding out the book for him to see. 

"It's supposed to be like that. They're copies of ancient spells printed into the paper, they're not meant to be understood, but conducted. I thought you're a magic know-it-all?" he states, feeling the corner of his mouth turn up to a smirk.

He is met with a whack to the head from the cleric. "Alright fine, maybe not, but I'm certainly knowledgeable and you can't deny it!" she blurts, a mix of annoyance and embarrassment on her face. "Let's just start already."

Erk prays to the heavens and asks Serra for the book. She gives it, although reluctantly. 

"An ideal position to use is something like a preacher's position," Erk demonstrates, holding his arm out with the tome like he's done many times before. "Pages should always be open, but it doesn't matter which page you're on."

Serra waves her hand vigorously. "Ooh! I know! It's because it's just the same spell each page!" 

Erk feels like a kids' teacher. "Yes. Going back to the point, don't forget to focus and concentrate." 

Taking a deep breath, he starts to focus on the book in front of him. "Imagine. . . how do I put this. . . . sucking the energy out of the tome I suppose. This may be tiring for beginners as it takes energy, but you should be able to pull out even a little."

He feels the familiar tingle of electric energy and pulls his hand away from the book. Sure enough, a ball of lightning was pulsating in his hand, lighting up the surroundings to some extent. It contrasted the dark surrounding so perfectly - it was ethereal.

Erk then closes his hand, causing the lightning to disappear. "That should be the basics. There's still aiming and larger manifestations of the spell- and no Serra you know well that you can't handle that yet," he counters after seeing Serra's pleading look.

The boisterous girl pouted. "Yeah, yeah. Fine. Just give me the book."

Erk does so, and watches her flip through the pages. "What are you doing?"

"Oh you know, checking if there's a spell you've missed-"

He couldn't help himself. Grabbing her wrist, he pushed her hand down on a page. She flinches slightly. "Serra please," he says, "stop horsing around."

"I-" Serra stutters. Erk realized what he's just done, and how it violates standard moral codes. Sure, Serra violates everything a proper lady should follow, but he's not going to go sink as low as she did. He's the better person. He's the role model. Not like her.

He chastises himself. God, why does he care so much about this anyway?

Snapping out of his thoughts, Erk turns his focus back to Serra. She seems to be concentrating, eyebrows knitted and nose scrunched. Her expression reminded him of a toddler learning how to write the ABC's. 

It's funny really, how he keeps comparing the pink haired "lady" to a kid. Maybe because she has the mentality of one, but he could see why she could still pass as a lady, although barely. She embodies passion, determination, spirit, independence, bright eyes, smooth skin. . .

What?

". . .Erk, are you that dumbfounded? Heh, I guess I am the genius among us after all."

Erk snaps out of his thoughts and follows Serra's gaze to her hand. There sat the same ball of lightning he had conjured earlier. Albeit duller and a whole lot more smaller, there it was - a ball of lightning.

Serra puffs out her chest in pride. "While you were busy admiring me and my awesomeness, I conjured this without much help from you. Good, eh?"

Erk feels himself heat up. "I wasn't- no- You're too ahead of yourself Serra-"

"Hah, you're not fooling anyone. If I was you, I'd want to be me too."

He clears his throat. He needs to change the subject fast. "About your lightning, I'd say it's pretty bad, but what was I supposed to expect from a pinhead?"

Serra gasps audibly. "Gosh Erk, I never expected such mean words from you! And who are you calling pinhead?"

Erk decides to ditch being a gentleman for once and have some fun with Serra.

"I called you pinhead, nitwit, because you are one."

"I am not a pinhead nor a nitwit!"

The squabbling continues for some time before Erk notices the ball of energy slowly slipping from Serra's hand.

"Serra-"

"Don't _Serra_ me!"

"SERRA-"

Erk jumps, but it's too late. The ball falls to the ground, and Erk barely has time to shout "Get away!" and hear Serra's scream before it explodes noisily.

A few seconds pass. He sniffs, and the smell of fresh electricity surrounds his nose. Thank god tomes aren't designed to affect the surrounding unless a special incantation is made.

"Mmf- mm-"

With a pang of horror, Erk realizes that something is writhing underneath him, trying to push him off it, or rather, _her_.

He scrambles away quickly, but is still met with a rather beat up looking Serra. Mud is on her dress and skin, and tufts of grass can be seen between her shawl and hair.

"Oh god, Erk-" she starts, but is interrupted.

"What happened?"

They both turn around at the sound of the new voice. Lyn is standing a few meters away from them, a trembling Florina right behind her. They both looked haggard, they must have been fresh out of bed. A few others have either come out of their tent or are currently coming out.

"It- It was an accident." Erk says, trying to keep his cool. "I was practicing my spells and Serra was practicing her healing."

Lyn nods and turns the gathering crowd behind her. "Hear that guys? It was just an accident, nothing to worry about. Continue resting."

Amidst grumbles and snorts, the rest of the group go back to their tents. Erk sighs in relief, he wouldn't have to be dealing with the wrath of angry troops.

"Um. . . Lyn, let's go back now. . ." Florina stutters, very clearly flustered. Erk can't help but think she has the wrong idea, a very wrong idea in fact.

Lyn smiles at her. Erk can't help but admire their friendship, it's a lion and sheep befriending each other instead of having the lion eating the sheep, which is unfortunately usually the case. "You go ahead Florina, I'll talk to these two."

Florina nods and walks back to their tent. Erk's focus is now fully back on Lyn, who seems to be debating on what to say.

"I'll be blunt. What the hell were you doing that made that explosion?"

Serra clears her throat. "I- it's my fault. I disturbed Erk while he was practicing, so he got startled and his spell backfired."

Erk looked at her in disbelief. Was Serra really taking the blame? Of course, it's better than her passing the blame to him, which frankly, he expected more.

Lyn seemed to buy it. "I don't disagree with honing your skills, after all, we fight with whole kingdoms and the Black Fang, we need to constantly improve in order to not fall behind in terms of skill. However, if you are going to practice, make sure you put your mind to it and not play around. You both could have sustained serious injuries and we would have to deal with one less healer and mage."

They both stay silent. Lyn takes a deep breath.

"You also need your sleep. We cannot have anyone perform less than decently on the battlefield due to fatigue. I'd say it's nearing midnight, I highly suggest you go to sleep now. We'll be getting up early."

"Yes, Lyn." They say in unison. Lyn nods and wishes them a good night before heading back to her tent.

Erk takes his tome out of the ground and proceeds back to the tent. He doesn't know if Serra's following. If she is, then she's not making a sound.

He thinks it's the the opposite. Turns out, he was right. Serra was still standing at the same place, seemingly gazing off into the distant mountains. Her staff was already in her hands.

"Serra?" Erk called out. Startled, she yelps out a "Coming!" before making her way over to him.

They both trudge in silence, the grass crunching noisily under their feet and the crickets chirping under the midnight atmosphere. Erk finds this very calming.

Once they reached the tent, they both immediately lay down on their mats. Erk feels a little uncomfortable. Although he's not claustrophobic, with Serra laying down as well, it feels a little cramped. He wishes that he could sleep outside, in the open peace of the meadow at night without any fear of danger. 

Somewhere in the back of his mind, a voice is telling him that's not why he feels uncomfortable. He decides to ignore it.

Serra rolls over to the side so she faces him. She doesn't say anything, she just looks at him.

"I see you're tired as well." Erk says, closing his eyes. 

She snorts and rhythmically punches the air with both arms. "Yeah, but that was one hell of a thrill." 

Erk cannot believe this person. She could have been gravely injured or maybe even dead, yet she's talking about how much of a thrill the experience was. 

"I can't stand you, you know that?" Erk says, opening his eyes again and facing up so he stares st the ceiling. 

A few seconds pass before he dares look at Serra, and when he does he's quite surprised to see that she has a downcast look about her. It's only there for a split second though, before he's aware of it, it changes back to her usual mischievous glint.

"No need to be so shy, Erk. I know, and everyone knows that you're probably the only one who can truly understand me." she utters.

Erk is both taken aback and appreciative of this sentiment. He understands why he's taken aback, because she's wrong, but he cannot pinpoint why he feels appreciative. 

He raises his eyebrows at her. "Are you sure about that? Because it doesn't seem so to me."

She raises her eyebrows back at him, a big smirk tugging at the corner of her lips. Erk thinks it suits her. . . her mischievous nature. "You're just in denial, Erk."

He has nothing to counter that and he's tired, so he decides to let it go at that.

"Whatever you say. I'm tired and need to sleep, so if you'd mind leaving me alone that would be great."

Serra shrugs with and rolls over again so she no longer faces him.

He stares at the orangey glow of the floating lamp overhead before feeling his eyes start to close.

Erk is almost fast asleep when he hears Serra speak again. "Thanks for the lesson. I better hear a word of gratitude from you tomorrow."

Although it's against his will, he smiles. Not just a smirk or a restrained smile, but a real smile.

And he drifts off to nothingness.

\---

Erk wakes up some time later. The lamp has been cast out, causing the tent to be surrounded in near darkness, save for the moonlight streaming in from the open tent flap. He sits up and looks around. None of the tents seem to be lit as well, so he assumes everyone is asleep. 

Hearing a big snore, he flinches, only to realize it's Serra. Through the dim light, he can see that she hasn't bothered to take off her shoes before sleeping. He snorts, Serra really isn't capable of acting like a proper lady at all.

He looks further and immediately regrets it. Serra must be an active sleeper, her skirt had ridden up to her upper thigh, exposing nearly the whole length of both her legs to the flustered mage. Erk feels the blood rush to his face, he needs to cover this. He wakes up earlier than Serra, this is the last thing he wants to see early in the morning.

He rummages around for his cloak and lays it on Serra. Thankfully it's big enough to cover majority of her body. Heaving a sigh of content, Erk lays back down. He's about to close his eyes again when he remembers something.

"Thanks, Serra."

What he didn't know was that for some miraculous reason, the next day, Serra does wake up earlier than him. However, the story of how she lovingly held the cloak tight to her chest whilst whispering "Oh, Erk. ." is for another day.

**Author's Note:**

> hi hello dear reader, thank you for reading (or skimming through) this fic! 
> 
> Personally I'm not very satisfied with the fic but if you guys enjoyed it then that's great c: ♡
> 
> Feel free to leave comments or corrections and such. This work hasn't been beta read


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